O/D Meeting 12/15/2020

Agenda

Members and Budget

• Current budget is void after three consecutive months with BELOW 68 members. (section 13.1.2.4)
• Deadline for submitting a new budget to the membership has passed (section 13.1.1.2)
• Budget may be "amended or removed at any time with a quorum vote" (section 13.1.2.3)

COVID-19

• Space Report
  • Supply report
  • Current state of the space

Digital Outreach

• Online Events
• Teleconferencing/Streaming Service for LVL1
• Hackathons

Minutes

December 15, 2020

tl;dr: Jim covers financials; we're in good shape discuss membership is 75 discuss payment of legal bill discuss membership requirement for budget to be active discuss how budget will be presented on ballot next month discuss our two budget alternatives discuss telling membership about preferring using last year's budget Covid-19 compliance and supplies discussed discuss grill incident, first the grill has been scrapped second, we have a flammables cabinet extensive discussion about the ventilation, use, implementation of rules, thereof third, stove disconnected and removed discussion of wiring for 220 in kitchen area discussion about the heat needing fixed in the classroom discussed the success of the virtual Archer Hackathon and trivia fun afterwards discussed a "Stupid Shit/Terrible Ideas" hackathon presented by Danielle discussed a PowerPoint-type hackathon idea presented by Madeline discussion of elections and nominations, and needing one more director nomination discussion of potential bylaw changes related to covid and membership discussion of taking on new members during covid, getting forms signed discussed Andy and Brian hosting a monthly project-showoff Tuesday meeting discussed temporary bylaw change regarding the three-month back-payment to rejoin discussed overall bylaw changes, with SOPs or "Practices and Procedures" sub-tiers update on inability to purchase the fan in the FAP no more Round Table; meeting adjourned, 10:47 pm.

December 15, 2020 December board meeting, via Zoom

attending: Charles The Hat, Danielle, Jim, Tiffany, Madeline, Raj (some), Keyvin (beginning)

LVL1 Board Meeting, by Zoom

Begin 9:11pm

Charles: There's the agenda in the group chat if anyone wants to follow along. First thing as always is the finance and member report. Jim.

[Then we lost Jim for a moment and had some fun discussion about it.]

Jim: Sheet 1 is our recurring expenses. We had $272 on the utility bill, very nice. That's the only thing keeping us going, really. And then, we've got subscriptions, MeetUp, V-Carve, Flickr, and next month, we'll have Zoom subscription. And then, insurance is still the same until next July [$134.48]. CC processing was $115 this month. We spent non-Amazon, including the new flammables cabinet, was $635.95. And we still have people on PayPal, so they charged us $9.80. Making our total expenses 2838.60 on the recurring expenses.

On sheet 3, we get income and expenses. We've got $3,150 in dues from the bank and PayPal. Amazon gave us $99.82, and we got some money on our investments, $13.90.

We spent 261 on PayPal because I reimbursed David and Andy for supplies, and for the SteadyRest for the lathe; I paid him through that instead of a check. Our bank fee was 2.95. Our flammables cabinet was 744.62. So that gave our expenses $3,847.74.

And then on sheet 2, profit and loss, put those in at the top for income and expenses, we came out $584 in the hole.

Checking balance is $36,780.50. Our emergency money is up to $9,207.20, and that gives us a total of $46,688.91.

And on our sequestered funds, the makership is up to $2,280. Our SBA grant still has $70 in it, and our hat grant has $458. Like I said, emergency is $9,207. The reserve -- someone was asking about that. I put in reserve the remaining amount needed to fund the year's budget. So, we've only got 7 weeks left, so that's approximately how much [$7,695.48] would be left of the budget. And that ties up a total of $19,711. So, unencumbered funds theoretically is $27,226.14.

Now, I've gone back over my stuff from a while back, and there is some t-shirt money that I deposited into the bank, and I've got some receipts in my briefcase that I'm going to start adding up to see how much we have in the t-shirt fund. So that will get sent over to the same area as the makership and the grants. I'm looking at something like $115 or $120 for t-shirt. Should be an even 10, right?

And that's where we're at. We have -- according to Pike13, we have 68 members. And if it wasn't for the utility bill, we've be in trouble. So, once we get going, we need to figure out how to get more members, so we can pay the utility bills.

Tiffany: In addition to those 68 members on Pike13, we have 7 in PayPal, right?

Jim: 7 people in PayPal. Okay.

Tiffany: So the 68 plus the 7 gives us 75 members.

Jim: Let me look. Yeah.

Tiffany: But you're right, we need to get a way to get new membership in, for sure.

Charles: Is that it for finance and membership?

Jim: I see Raj is with us. I wanted to let him know that I went ahead and paid the attorney; they were getting a little antsy and I hadn't heard from you, so I went ahead and paid them.

Raj: Yeah, I had figured as much. Sorry, I never got a chance to take care of that.

Jim: That's okay.

Raj: Because they did overbill us. But I have had a lot going on for the last couple of months, so I honestly haven't even checked my email in probably 7 weeks.

Jim: Most of us felt like that it wasn't an outrageous amount of money, that it was fair enough, we weren't that worried about it.

Raj: Yeah, I thought about this a few weeks ago, that it was inevitable that you-guys must have paid it. It bothers me to a degree, because they massively overbilled us, and it's not what we agreed on; but at the same time, I just didn't have the ability to handle it at that time. And I know that at some point, we've just got to pay it. So thanks for taking care of it.

Jim: Yeah, we thought it was best to take care of it.

Danielle: It's good to hear from you, Raj.

Raj: Yeah, it's good to see everybody as well. Thank you.

Charles: So moving into the next item on the budget: Is the number of members we need for the budget to be valid is 68, right?

Jim: Yes, but we also have the PayPal people, so it's 75.

Charles: What was that, Jim?

Jim: We have to add in the PayPal people. There are 7 people that pay through PayPal so that's 75.

Charles: Wait. But the number of members we need for the budget to be valid is 68; is that right?

Jim: That's right. Yes. That's why that number is stuck in my head. Yeah. In the bylaws, I looked it up after Tiffany mentioned it, the bylaws say that it has to be below that for three months. So it's not just for one.

Charles: It has to be below it --

Jim: Yes, below that for three months.

Charles: -- for three consecutive months, because I double-checked that, too. So, also the deadline for the budget committee to meet and submit a new budget to the membership was November 30th, so we missed that.

Jim: That was on the -- sorry, I spaced out on it; I thought it was the end of the year. I should have looked.

Charles: It's supposed to be submitted to the membership for them to comment on it. But here's the thing: We were really only operating for a little over two months this year. And it's going to be another several months before we're really operating again. We really don't have the information to do a budget for this year, I don't think.

Jim: Right.

Danielle: Right.

Charles: According to the bylaws, the election will have on the ballot, the new budget created by the committee, the previous year's budget, or no budget. The committee didn't meet and submit a budget, so basically the two options that are going to be on the ballot are going to be to reuse last year's budget or to operate with no budget.

Jim: Right.

Charles: If we reuse last year's budget, then we've got the number of members looming, which isn't as close as we thought it was, but it's still out there. Since we haven't really been using the budget, it wouldn't necessarily be that bad of a thing to start the year operating without the budget. The board is still empowered to pay rent, pay bills, pay anything that's necessary to keep the space open and keep our obligations that we have. We still have the allowance that we can spend, and we still have the FAP process. Until we really start operating again, we may not really need a budget.

The budget bylaw also, section 13.1.2.3 says, "budget may be amended or removed at any time with a quorum vote." So, that's the same threshold as for a FAP. We could basically say that we're going to operate without a budget until the space gets back to normal, and then we'll come back to it then. So that's one option.

Jim: We'll, we don't have to be afraid of last year's budget over again because of the money; it's only because of the number of people.

If we aren't open, we aren't spending it, the things in that budget that we would repeat wouldn't be spent again, like they weren't spent last year.

Charles: Yeah.

Jim: Did we get any blowback from our landlords on the fire thing?

Charles: No, and that's on the agenda later.

Danielle: So, what are you proposing specifically, The Hat, like for the budget issue? What are you proposing specifically?

Charles: So, the two things that are going to be on the ballot, because the bylaws say so, are going to be last year's budget or operating without a budget. I think one of us, probably me, should just post something on the members' list stating that, because of conditions, whatever we decide, I should just post something on the members' list proposing that to the members so that they don't get surprised when they see it on the ballot, and so they don't say at the beginning of January, what happened here?

Danielle: That makes sense.

Charles: -- where we can pick it up now and say, this is why this is okay, instead of waiting.

Danielle: And sparking a discussion in advance; that's a good idea, getting ahead of that. Good call, being aware of what's going to be on the ballot. So you're going to post an email about that, basically saying, here's what's going to be on the ballot because of this?

Charles: Well, I'll post a message to the members' list about the budget item that's going to be on the ballot, what the options will be.

As a board, we should just kind of reach a consensus so we have a unified, coherent thing to say to the members as far as whether to use last year's budget or to operate without a budget; really, at this point, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. The only differences are if we drop below the 68 members, then that budget is going to be void. If we operate without a budget, then we'll have to pass some kind of budget when we start operating again. And that could be a while. The bylaws say that the budget can be amended or removed at any time with a quorum vote, which implies that there's already a budget there, but even if someone brings that up, we could do the same thing with a FAP. We could say we're FAPping for and operating a budget for whatever is left of this year. The funds for a FAP are put back into general fund after two months, but we can make it part of a FAP to sequester it somewhere to be used for operating expenses.

We did the same thing with the emergency fund. It was a FAP, but it's part of the FAP that this is going to this place for this thing.

Danielle: So you're going to send out an email with these options, but also educating the members of our viewpoint based on the stuff that we know.

Charles: I was going to figure out which of those two options we think is the better one and send out an email with that. We want to be careful not to make decisions beyond our authority, so it's a soft sell, it's, "I propose we do this."

Danielle: Yeah, like, "Hey, based on what we've been working with, this seems like the best option, and we should probably go with this." But yes, we should be careful to not take control.

My internet connection is doing something funky; so I'll be back in a few minutes. But you-guys keep.

Charles: Well, you're up next on the agenda, so hurry up. So, what are people's thoughts on reusing the budget or operating without a budget?

Jim: Yes.

Tiffany: I like the idea of operating with last year's budget, but that's just my personal preference.

Madeline: I mean, neither sounds that bad. I don't think we can really lose, either way.

Tiffany: Agreed.

Jim: Yeah.

Madeline: Going with last year's budget might be better in terms of just looking like we've got a little more structure, that resembles what we've done in past years, rather than go with no budget. I can imagine some people might be spooked by that, like not be happy about perceived oversteppings of the board's authority, that kind of thing. But reusing the old budget might be --

Jim: Plus we've got the money built in for the monthly get-together or hackathon that we've not been using.

Charles: Now, that's something we could actually, if we organized more online, zoom-based things, we do actually have a little bit of budget that we could use to drop-ship prizes from Amazon or something.

Jim: There's a thought.

Charles: That might get more people involved.

Jim: That would make it fun.

Danielle: All right. I'm back.

Charles: Hello. So the post is going to propose that we just go ahead and use last year's budget, so tonight or tomorrow night, I will write that post and I will spin it appropriately.

Danielle: So go ahead and use last year's budget?

Jim: Yeah.

Tiffany: Well, we should ask Danielle, do you have a preference as far as the two options that are going to be used, last year's budget or operate with no budget?

Danielle: I say it should be up to Jim. I mean, if you're going to be treasurer, it's your preference.

Jim: Yeah, I like the budget. The budget made it a lot easier.

Danielle: Well, there's our answer. Yeah. That's my opinion.

Charles: So it's basically going to be something along the lines of, "We didn't form a budget. We didn't really have enough information to review this year's expenses or enough information to really plan next year's expenses, so last year's budget is going to be on the ballot. We're not really spending any money, so a vote for last year's budget will allow us to resume operations once covid passes."

Tiffany: We did form a committee last year, and we did work hard on that budget last year; there were several meetings.

Jim: We surely did.

Madeline: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Charles: Because we epically screwed it up the year before.

Jim: And almost drove Kevin over the edge.

Tiffany: Well, luckily that didn't happen!

Charles: As is tradition with the bylaws, they accorded us a wide degree of flexibility, but that approach assumes that people know what they're doing. And we really didn't for one or two of the first years that we were doing that.

All right. Moving on to Covid-19, space report. Danielle or possibly Jim; I'm not sure who's taking care of that this month.

Danielle: The last time I've been there, which was a week ago, there seem to be a lot of masks; so no shortage of masks. I know there was a complaint recently on the board about a messy table; but honestly, it is back to normal. There's no crazy messiness. There is some work going on. There's obviously the flammables issue which we'll get to as well, but that's going to be an on-going thing that Kevin and I will work on, when we install the flammables cabinet and that sort of thing. But this is bleeding into the next line item on the agenda here. There seem to be plenty of cleaning supplies out, as well. On just about every table, I see wipes, I see spray bottles, and hand sanitizer and everything. There are still signs that are posted on every door that are pretty clear about getting a mask on. And the thermometer is still up front. We're all good on our basic stuff and it all seems to be okay, and there are no real catastrophes in terms of cleanliness at the space.

And that all seems to be okay. So, on to the not-okay thing that happened, right?

Charles: The grill incident.

Jim: The recent unpleasantness.

Charles: So the grill has been scrapped. The landlord has not called me back about anything, so I'm going to take that as we're okay.

Danielle: All right. Good.

Jim: No news is good news.

Charles: I think I've tried to follow-up with the landlord twice. I sent an email; I called; I may have called a second time, maybe not. But the last thing the property manager said to me was that she would -- well, I asked her to contact me if she had any further concerns, and she said she would get back to me and I haven't heard anything. I'm going to assume we're okay.

Danielle: Yes. We should be.

Charles: So as a result of that incident, the flammables cabinet is one thing that happened. Aside from the grill, the flammables cabinet. What's the status of the flammables cabinet?

Jim: It's sitting in front of the tables with the 3D printers.

Danielle: So yeah, it's sitting there. Yeah, you brought it in. It's in the space. Is it assembled or is it just in a box?

Jim: No, it's there. They haven't put the shelf in it yet. But it's there ready to go.

Charles: Does it have the appropriate ventilation?

Jim: Well, I don't know how you do it right there. We didn't decide on an ultimate final resting place for it. Kevin and Randy and I unloaded it and carried it in the back door and got it down into the space. So we just set it there in front of the 3D printers.

Charles: Okay. So it needs a permanent home away from any heat sources and I believe it's supposed to have some kind of ventilation.

Danielle: Yes.

Jim: Yes. [breaking up; inaudible] think we should run it over [inaudible].

Charles: Jim, you're breaking up.

Danielle: Badly.

Charles: Do you want to try turning off your video?

Jim: -- if we put it on the wall with the laser cutter -- okay. If we can run it along that wall, we could ventilate at the window that's already been taken out for the laser [inaudible].

Tiffany: It's really bad.

Jim: I'm back now. What I was saying was that we have a window out. Is there room to run a small pipe out there for the exhaust for the flammables cabinet? It only has to be about two or three inches in diameter. It's a small [inaudible] pipe.

Charles: I'm sure we could make room.

Jim: Or we could get -- we could take out a window somewhere else, if we want to.

Charles: I'm sure we could make room there. I mean, it's a rectangular window pane and a circular exhaust pipe, so there's got to be a corner or something available.

Jim: Yeah, we should be able to, if we're in the same vicinity as the laser exhaust, so it's not going to be that big of a deal, I hope.

Most of them I've seen in my career are not ventilated, but are just sitting there, being safe. It's not something that needs to be done right away, I guess. As long as we have a cabinet.

Danielle: We have the cabinet. I can talk to Kevin and we can figure out something. As long as we can get it ventilated somehow. I'm sure we can do something.

Charles: And even if it's going to take some time to get the ventilation figured out, having the cabinet and having it located away from any heat sources and enforcing that flammable liquids are in the cabinet takes care of most of the actual problem. It makes the space a lot safer.

So the other thing that needs to be done is we need signs around the space and we need to start enforcing this, that flammables are kept in the flammable cabinet. One of the recent amendments to the bylaws empowers the board to make uncontroversial rules. We can just post rules and we post something on the members' list; and as long as nobody complains --

Danielle: "I want my flammables out in the open, I want to start a fire."

Madeline: I think it would be good also in that same email and possibly on the signs to give people a list of the flammables expected to go into the cabinet. Like, what kinds of flammable things are in the space right now; what kinds are people likely to have around the space.

Could we make it a rule that if anything is in that category of flammables is left unattended for any amount of time, anyone is allowed to pick it up and put it back in the cabinet?

Danielle: Yes.

Madeline: No one should come into the space in the morning, after someone left the night before, and find flammable fluid out on a table because someone forgot to put it away. I'm trying to convey that we should eliminate wiggle room; that it HAS to go in there, no matter how long you're stepping away.

Danielle: Absolutely. So, nobody should walk into the space and see a bottle of acetone hanging out.

Madeline: If you're using it, that's fine, but you should be within eyesight of it or close enough that if someone says, "Hey, whose is this," you will hear them and respond.

Charles: I mean, if you are just going to the bathroom, I can see someone leaving it out, but then, I can't see that person being upset that it got returned to the flammables cabinet while they were away.

Madeline: Yeah. Exactly.

Danielle: Exactly. Yeah. That's the bottom line. Just say, "If you see it unattended, please make sure it gets back in the flammables cabinet." And nobody can fault you for that.

Charles: Yeah. If there are other people in the space, and they know you're using it and you've only been gone for five minutes, they know what's up; they can use their own judgement.

Madeline: Well, especially to empower in those --

Charles: But saying that anything left out may be returned to the flammables cabinet is fine.

Madeline: Or to also make it so that whoever leaves the space last, and it's their responsibility to make sure that everything is locked up and the lights are off and all that, checking for flammables is also that person's responsibility, that that's part of it.

Charles: Yeah.

Danielle: Good idea.

Tiffany: That's good.

Madeline: So if we come in one day and stuff is left out, the two people we look at then are, if we can figure out who left it out, and also who was the last person in there, and if they're not the same person.

Charles: I'm not going to be upset with someone because they missed a bottle of acetone that was left out by the 3D printers, but yes.

Madeline: Yeah, obviously there is some leeway there.

Charles: But yeah, I think the part of the lock-up procedure should be just look at the tables and see that there's nothing out that shouldn't be out.

Madeline: The rules for this, though, should be as clear and as strict as the, say, the Covid precautions that we're taking at the space. Like, you have to wear a mask, you have to wash your hands, like that level of safety approach.

Charles: So this discussion should be worked on, on a different line, but the important thing is who wants to take responsibility for seeing that that discussion happens.

Danielle: I'll be part of it, for sure, because I've already started and helped, and Kevin and I have been working together on this. Here's another important thing that needs to be considered. There is stuff on member shelves which is also --

Jim: I was just saying that, yeah.

Danielle: Yeah, we were going to maybe use a label to put people's names on there and then put it in there, because there's that. There's also the cans of spray paint and that, in the back, which we're going to have to go through.

Charles: We also need to find an authoritative list, from a legitimate source, saying what are the things that need to be in a flammables cabinet.

Tiffany: Like an OSHA list or something?

Charles: Yeah.

Danielle: Yeah, I mean, there's usually safety lists that can be used.

Charles: Something from any kind of union group or industry standard, from some entity that has some authority, that says what-all should be in there.

Jim: Yeah. And we should also let people know that there's things they just can't store down there. I mean, we don't need another propane tank in there.

Danielle: Yes, that was also what I was going to say. Yeah, no propane tanks, period, indoors, period. Somebody brought in a bunch of little ones, which I guess are for indoor use, but they would obviously go into flammables. But the regular, giant propane tanks, those shouldn't be indoors at all.

Jim: No. What about the butane torches that are used for different things?

Danielle: That's a good point.

Tiffany: There's usually one or two of those at jewelry and several of them in the metal shop.

Jim: They're flammable and explosive.

Charles: I mean, they should go in the flammables cabinet, but those are devices that are designed to be operated indoors.

Danielle: Yeah. I'm not sure.

Jim: Well, yeah, that's fine, but when you're done for the day, should we put them away or not?

Danielle: Yeah, this will be an offline discussion with the group that wants to help me with the people that are going to work on this. So we'll move this off to another setting and I'll help chair this up.

Jim: Okay. Sure.

Danielle: We'll definitely get progress going on the flammable cabinet.

Charles: All right. The last thing that happened as a result of the grill incident, and what I actually told the landlord, and they seemed to be fine with, was that the stove that was in the back of the space was disconnected because we didn't think it was installed securely and to code. So what we should do on that, it's going to be the next board's decision whether to go through with this or not because it's not going to happen in the next month, but we need to know what it would cost to put in a 220 circuit out to the kitchen area so that can actually be connected in a secure location away from burning and melting things. In any case, it would require work to be done at the space which is not going to happen in the current environment.

Jim: Speaking of our landlords, did we ever get anything done with the classroom HVAC?

Charles: No, that got preempted by the grill incident.

Danielle: Who was checking in with an outside vendor? Was someone doing that?

Charles: We're supposed to check with the landlord first. They want their person to do it and send us the bill because it's our equipment; that's what I was told. So the landlord was the next point of contact for that, the next action item on that; and that got preempted by the grill thing. So we're a few weeks out from that; we can probably poke them on that at this point. And I said that I would do that. To refresh my memory, what exactly needs to be done with the HVAC unit?

Danielle: It's not working, in the classroom.

Charles: Okay. But the same unit is handling the main space and it is working? Okay. And we just need to have someone come out and service it or fix it or whatever.

Danielle: M-hm. Or whatever, yes.

Charles: Okay. I'll follow up on that.

Danielle: Okay. Thanks, Charles.

Charles: Next on the agenda is digital outreach. So we had a Hackathon this last weekend; it went well. We had people participate, which was awesome. There were six projects, including my gag project, which won so it's just not that hard to have a project and enter and win, people. [laughs] So, Gary and Jose were the other two winners from that; Steff co-hosted with me. And then we had a trivia thing that we did afterwards, which was apparently entertaining.

Danielle: [laughs] Yeah, it was. I got to teach new words.

Charles: Steff won the sudden death round; Jose won the most correct answers after the sudden death round and Danielle gets a special mention for knowing what _____________ means. [a word that sounds like corpustular or propuscular]

Madeline: So are there plans to do more hackathons in the future?

Charles: Yes. Which one would you like to do?

Madeline: This sounds cool.

Charles: Yeah, we're trying to get this to be a thing at least until the Covid thing is over. Which, by the way, for anyone not following news, the first front-line health workers have been vaccinated in Kentucky this week, but best estimates are that it's going to be probably April or May before there's enough vaccine to go around to get enough people vaccinated to reach that herd immunity threshold. And they're still not going to lighten up restrictions until the virus actually is [inaudible]. So it could be a few weeks after that before we actually get back to normal. So we're in this for a fair portion of next year.

Danielle: M-hm. But hey, steps forward, right?

Jim: Yeah.

Madeline: So when I asked if there are any hackathons planned for the future, I mean, like the Archer Hackathon is a recurring one that you do every year at about the same time. I think, the White Elephant, I don't know how we would do that in this format.

Charles: The two that I usually do are the Archer Hackathon in November and the White Elephant in December. I couldn't really work out how we entrepreneurs do a version of that, so the Archer Hackathon happened in early December instead.

Danielle: There's one Hackathon I've been meaning to redo because it was really fun and even got another hackerspace involved. It actually happened on the east and west coast, and it was the "Stupid Shit that No One Needs and Terrible Ideas" hackathon. And it was just to celebrate all these stupid inventions that everybody keeps doing. And just basically, it was trying to be as pointless as possible and awful ideas. [discusses a couple of ideas for this hackathon] I did rejected highlighters, like one that was clear because it was just made of water and other rejected highlighter colors. And just stupid, real inventions have come out, like a wifi-enabled salt shaker. That's a real thing that somebody has invented.

Charles: Yeah, I was going to say, there were like 90 [inaudible] IOT things from the last year.

Danielle: Exactly. Yeah, we could just set it up and be, like, "Come join the stupid products." It's a great way to celebrate the hackerspaces' snarky outlooks on everybody's view that makerspaces are full of innovators and entrepreneurs and all that stuff. So this is just our snarky outlook on it, like, "yeah, we'll take that."

Charles: Patrick did a very similar hackathon; he called it something it different but it was basically the same idea. He hosted a hackathon a little bit after that which was pretty much the same thing. I think that was a popular theme. I'm just going back to the thought because Madeline was asking, but as far as recurring hackathons, we usually have the November and December things; and then, we usually have one or two, "Oh, Shit, is that next week" hackathons before makerfaire or whatever. Those are obviously out until those start happening again.

Madeline: It's not technically a hackathon, but what do you think would be the interest in a PowerPoint party? Have you heard of people doing these? My sister does them with her friends online. I feel like it's the kind of thing that has some of that LVL1 energy to it, but it scales very well to a Zoom platform. It's where people normally get drunk and [inaudible] prepare a two- to three-minute PowerPoint presentation about something that they can talk about for that long. So, I've seen, like, some people will use it to dive into some random actual area of knowledge, like history or science or whatever, that they're really passionate about and that they can talk about. And some people use it to make up completely fake, deliberately ridiculous conspiracy theories, or to talk about something random, like, of the people in this room, who would be the best of which Sponge Bob character? Stuff like that. Inebriation is recommended but not required. But I don't know if that kind of thing would fit in. It's not technically building anything, so I wouldn't want to call it a hackathon, but it seems --

Charles: It sounds like a hackathon to me!

Danielle: Yeah, it totally sounds like a hackathon.

Madeline: Oh, hell, yeah.

Charles: One thing. At Defcon, there is an event called "Whose [inaudible; flight, light] is it anyway," which is based on the improv show "Whose Line is it, Anyway" from Drew Carey back in the olden days.

Danielle: They're still doing it, by they way. They're still doing it, with a different host.

Madeline: Is this one of those games where people have to present about a PowerPoint that they didn't create and are seeing it for the first time as it shows up behind them?

Charles: Yes [laughs].

Danielle: [laughs]

Madeline: That's great.

Charles: And so, from what you're saying there, one thing that might be an interesting idea is to have everyone who is participating in the hackathon make a generic set of PowerPoint slides and then exchange them, and present someone else's PowerPoint back.

Danielle: That would be fun.

Madeline: I will look into making that happen. I'll email the members' list to see if there is interest or experience in that kind of thing.

Charles: And both of those would be really easy things to do on Zoom. Whoever is running the presentation can do screen share and someone else can talk over it.

Madeline: All right. Cool.

Danielle: Yeah. [laughs] So it's awesome that there was a good digital turnout for the Archer Hackathon. And we're still getting good turnout for the Tuesday night meetings, too, that people have been showing up. That's good. And you've got a regular audience, right, for Threadsday Thursday, right, Mad? So that's awesome.

Madeline: Yeah, there are two people who show up every week, and occasionally a third person comes in. Yeah.

Danielle: Yeah, I've slipped in a couple of times and bothered you-guys.

Madeline: You're always welcome, too.

Danielle: And I love it.

Madeline: I figure if I keep it open, more people will have the opportunity to come through.

Danielle: Absolutely. So, that's awesome. I think it's a matter of -- I want to take a look at the website; I don't know how our social media is faring. I guess our Facebook is being run by Andy, mostly. The more we get the word out about stuff, people can drop by. These digital things are good. He has pushed our Tuesday night one, and he can push some of these more, too, so that would be fun.

Charles: So, it's been an hour. So I want to say, I love both of those hackathon ideas. We can totally do the "Stupid Shit" thing remotely. So I would encourage both of you to pick a weekend and run with it.

Jim: Yeah.

Charles: We have, as some of you saw on the directors' list, we have a LVL1 Zoom account now. The credentials are on the directors' list.

Danielle: Sweet! Thank you very much, Jim.

Charles: Are those also -- yes, thank you, Jim.

Jim: Yes. You're welcome. There are --

Charles: Are the credentials for that --

Jim: Yeah. There are additional things we can add for more money. There's a list of them I think I sent with the registration. So we can add features if we want to; just going to cost us more.

Charles: Are the credentials for that on the drive somewhere?

Jim: I sent an email to everybody with them attached. I can go back and -- I also sent the page that has all the options on it. I didn't click on any of them to add them, because I wasn't sure what we really needed. And we can expand that. I think we can only go up to 100 people. And the next jump is pretty expensive.

Madeline: I think Charles is saying that we need the user name and password for the official LVL1 Zoom account in the directors' drive that we have.

Jim: Oh, okay.

Charles: There is a document somewhere that has logins and passwords that should be in there, is what I'm saying.

Danielle: I'm working on it right now.

Charles: Danielle is on it.

Madeline: Thank you.

Charles: All right. The last question there is who do we give that out to? I know Andy already has it. For the time being, I think that's like the old space, where we had physical keys that some people had but not everyone had, because that's basically -- this is basically our space for now. So I would say generally, any member that you know that has been around for a while will be okay to pass that off to.

Jim: [administrative login info redacted]

Danielle: I gave it to Andy when he needed to set up some stuff immediately, because he's been setting up stuff and he's been working out social media and everything, so it makes sense.

Charles: Yeah.

Jim: Yes.

Charles: Yes, the social media accounts are another good analogous thing to this, which we handle that as, it's on the directors' drive, and if a responsible person comes to us that wants to use it, then we let them have it. Pretty much.

Danielle: Yep. Pretty much. All right.

Charles: All right. Moving on, elections. Elections are coming up.

Jim: Really? What?

Charles: I'm almost ready to wash my hands of this madness. [laughs] We've had a few nominations; we need to get at least a full slate of officers and directors. So, if you would like to run again, you can nominate yourself. Any member can nominate him- or herself for officer or director position, or someone else can nominate, either way. But we need to put together a full slate of officers and directors to run. As I believe most of you are aware, I'm term limited as an officer, so I'm going to take a big step backwards. I had planned to take a step back and let the next board do what the next board wants to do; but if we get up to the close of nominations and we don't have a full slate of directors, I'd be willing to run as a director. But I'd like to find a full slate of officers and directors to nominate.

Danielle: Yeah. So, Mads, are you going to be running?

Madeline: Yeah. Yeah, I can run again as director.

Danielle: A director. Okay. I was going to say, we don't have a VP nominated, I don't think, if you want to be VP.

Jim: That's right.

Madeline: I'm trying to remember exactly what the job description is, there.

Danielle: There's only one official job for a VP, and it's to announce board meetings.

Madeline: Cool.

Danielle: And to be the substitute for the president.

Charles: Yeah, you're second in line for chairing the weekly meetings and the board meetings.

Danielle: Yeah, so just that.

Madeline: Yeah, I'll accept.

Danielle: Yeah? All right.

Madeline: Yes, if Danielle's not going to. I don't know what the term limit thing is.

Danielle: The term limit thing is just for being an officer.

Charles: Three years as an officer.

Danielle: It's three years. And I'm running for secretary.

Madeline: Okay.

Danielle: No offense, Tif, I know. Nothing against you, Tif, but yeah.

Tiffany: None taken.

Danielle: What is it? Who else? We've nominated Andy to the board.

Charles: And Steff has been nominated for president.

Danielle: And of course, Jim, has anybody nominated you for treasurer yet?

Charles: I think Kevin nominated Jim. I'm not sure.

Jim: Kevin did. I was on the list that he did. Yeah.

Danielle: He did? Okay. All right.

Jim: I mean, unless somebody else wants it.

Danielle: No, I don't think so [laughs]. I think you're stuck.

Charles: The treasurer has always been a kind of volun-told thing [laughs].

Charles: We need a VP. Well, Paul is not here and I don't know if Raj has got the time to put into it next year. Raj, are you around?

Raj: Yeah, I'm still here. No, I'm -- if I do anything, I'll be director. I definitely don't have time to be VP or anything like that.

Jim: Okay.

Charles: So what are your thoughts on running for director, Raj?

Raj: For myself, you mean?

Charles: Yeah, what are your thoughts on running for director?

Raj: I'm undecided at this point. I'm not sure if I will or not. I need to give it some serious thought, if I'm going to have the time to do it.

Danielle: Yeah.

Raj: It's not too big of a time commitment, it's just sporadic issues that come up in the monthly board meetings, so it's not too big a deal, but I need to give it some more serious thought. So at this point, I'm undecided.

Danielle: Okay.

Charles: So we're going to need to find a director or two.

Raj: I'm certain I'm not going to run for any of the officer positions.

Jim: And if you're not on the board, Raj, you can still kibbutz with us. Your advice is always welcome.

Danielle: Oh, yes, absolutely.

Raj: I appreciate that.

Charles: So the other thing that happens during elections is it's really the only time of the year we can get people to vote on bylaw changes. So if anyone has any changes that they think should be made to the bylaws, we should talk about that or talk about that on the members' list. Optionally talk about it here, but definitely talk about it on the members' list. Usually a bylaw change gets posted to the members' list a month or two before the election so that they can get some comments from the members and we can get to a bylaw change that we think is the consensus of the membership and is actually going to pass.

I thought there were a couple of bylaw changes that someone wanted to bring up tonight.

Tiffany: I have a couple. I guess I want to discuss it with the board before putting it before the membership, but I think that we -- well, I have something about membership as well, but I think a bylaw change should be proposed or drafted and voted regarding a change in the 90-day trial period that a member is on when they become a new member. We have Gary's son who wants to become a new member; I think that we can be reasonably certain that he's going to behave as a member should, just because he's familiar with the space from his dad being there. I have a friend who I have brought down to the space a few times, who has hung out with several spacers, and I could be his sponsoring member and I think I could speak for him that he, too, will be okay within those 90 days. But there were other people on email, or various inlets to the space, who want to look at membership; and we should decide amongst ourselves if we think that's a viable option or not and one of the ways that it could be a more viable option is if we add a "during pandemic only" bylaw that new members are trial members through the length of the pandemic, until such time as these restrictions are lifted, and then for the 90 days afterwards, as well. That gives us an opportunity to let people use the space, to bring them in and let them become members, let them use the space, but also gives us our customary three months after restrictions are lifted to find out who these people are and make sure that they're a good fit for the community.

Jim:  I agree.

Charles: So, I've got a couple of comments. One is, we need to come up with some kind of objective criteria for when that is. So, that needs to be part of it, when we actually submit the change. Another comment would be Patrick Joyce has written bylaw changes before, so it might be worth emailing him on the side for some suggestions about how to word it or such.

Tiffany: I can definitely do that.

Charles: Of course, Raj might be good at that, too. [laughs] And he's here right now.

Jim: Yeah.

Charles: And the last thing, which isn't really a comment about that bylaw change directly, but as far as onboarding new members, if they're going to join during this time, they need to come to something that we're doing virtually. The Kevin #2, or whoever [laughs], he's been at a lot of the Tuesday night meetings. I think he was there at the beginning of the Archer Hackathon, but something came up and he didn't come back for the end of it. But yeah, if they're going to join, they need to get to some of these virtual things so that we can check them out to some degree. Of course, they also still need to have the three sponsoring members. So hopefully they've done something to get those.

Jim: Yeah. Does that need to be on paper, or can we make that a virtual thing, signing off on them?

Charles: I think --

Madeline: There has to be a way to get digital signatures. Like, that has to be within our capability.

Tiffany: That is a really good question.

Danielle: At the same time, I don't know, somebody should be able to meet them in person.

Charles: Yeah. Okay. We can always make part of the bylaw change something that explicitly allows for that, or at least fixes the parts of the bylaws that refer to a physical membership form.

Jim: Right. Yeah.

Charles: But also, with physical membership forms, that really only requires two people to ever be in the same place at the same time. You can pass the form around to get the signatures. You can get signatures from other members, you can leave it in a mailbox or something if you want to, to get the signatures. The only thing that really requires interactions between two people is the two directors that verify the identity. And then, getting the key and all that done.

Tiffany: And the "How to close the space" walkthrough, which now includes a flammables cabinet.

Charles: And most of that can be done virtually, but really the only thing that requires two people to be in the same place at the same time is when the two directors who need to verify identity.

Jim: Okay.

Danielle: But somebody does have to physically -- we have to ensure that somebody has physically walked the person through the space and done the basic walkthrough of the space when you get a membership. As a matter of fact, that's led to a lot of problems last year, where there were a bunch of onboarded members that never got the talk or never knew they were supposed to have a member shelf or anything like that.

Charles: Well, that's something that could be done virtually. You could walk through the space videoconferencing. And it would actually be a good thing for that to be recorded somewhere so people can refer back to it.

Jim: Yeah.

Danielle: That's a good idea.

Charles: And we're going to know who these people are, so we're gong to know who we can hit up to have a refresher course on this when we can safely get together at the space again.

Tiffany: Well, right now, we're only talking about ultimately two people who are familiar with the space, enough to easily be taught the processes.

Jim: Well, there was the friend of what's his name, she donated the bag of key fobs, and she was really interested in joining. I don't know what ever happened to that.

Tiffany: Those key fobs were appreciated. Whose friend donated those?

Jim: I can't remember his name. He's one that's around a lot, but I can't remember his name. And he was asking even back then, and that was months ago, what we were going to do for how you can bring in new people, and we've just been hemming and hawing around.

Charles: Nathan Armentrout was one of the people that was asking about it. I don't know if it was the same person, but he was one of the people that was asking about new members.

Jim: I think it was Nathan; I'm not sure.

Charles: He's a former officer, as well, that uses the space a lot.

Jim: I know we're flying blind when we put people in.

Tiffany: Flying blind but what?

Jim: But we should have a structure for how we get new people in. People are getting a little antsy and we're starting to look indecisive.

Charles: We've already said that they needed to come -- and Kevin #2 has been doing this, but we have said that they need to show up to virtual events to get to know people, so we can push that, if anyone is getting antsy. Because I agree that we need to have a process for bringing people on, but if we say, "Show up to events so we know who you are," and they don't show up, then [laughs].

Danielle: It's important also that we make sure we emphasize these events so one of the things that I think I should do here is try to create what I wanted to do; I wanted to create another calendar for virtual events, because we started with the old calendar. And start putting these events on it; start posting it on our social media; start actually putting it out there, so we can actually draw people in again. So that might be an important thing to do. I will try to see if I can do that soon so that we can emphasize that, both to people elsewhere, but especially to our own members, because we seem to be seeing a few come virtually, but I would love to see some new faces and see our community really diving into these virtual meetings.

Charles: Andy and Brian were doing that. They wanted to do this monthly mini-hackathon project-showoff kind of meeting. That was a big success when they did it before. Really all it's doing is picking a week each month and saying, "We're not going to be here every week, but show up this week." So that has been a success, and I think they want to go ahead and do that, maybe just push them to pick their next date to do that.

Danielle: And the calendar will really help.

Charles: But they both wanted to do that again.

Danielle: That's good, because that was cool.

Jim: Yeah.

Tiffany: My next idea for a bylaw change, I think that we should propose temporarily waiving the three-month backlog that you have to pay to become a member again during the pandemic. I think that might encourage some of the people who have dropped off this year or last year or recently, whatever, who might want to come back, to not have to pay $200 to come back but just start paying monthly. I think that might raise our membership, even at this point if we're just talking one member, or two or three. But let's say [redacted] or [redacted] wanted to become a member again, but they cannot swing the three months back plus the current month that it takes to be back. Can we come up with a temporary pandemic bylaw that waives that necessity of those three months backwards?

Charles: Do we know potentially how many people that would affect?

Tiffany: No, I haven't read the bylaw specifically. That was something I meant to do before the meeting tonight and did not get accomplished, to find out who it affects.

Danielle: Are you talking about the three-month, is that when you have to fill out a whole new membership form?

Charles: No, they just stop paying.

Tiffany: Yeah, when people suspend their membership.

Danielle: Yeah.

Charles: And get suspended. They have to pay back dues to get reinstated.

Danielle: No, they don't. Do they? No, I -- they do? When did that --

Charles: Yeah.

Jim: It's always been that way.

Danielle: Yeah, you told [redacted] he had to pay three months back.

Charles: Okay. This is if they just don't pay. These are already people that -- this is where this is going to be a hard sell, because these are people that already have just not paid instead of contacting the board and saying, "I'd like to suspend my membership."

Tiffany: That's it. Now I understand.

Danielle: Yeah, that's it.

Tiffany: Okay.

Charles: It's people that, as far as we know, were still using the space after not paying.

Tiffany: That's a different ball of wax.

Danielle: Yeah.

Charles: Yeah, it's people that couldn't be bothered to tell the board, "I want to suspend my membership." It's people that just stopped paying without saying anything.

Jim: Right.

Tiffany: So, for example [redacted] and [redacted] would be two that continued to use their membership for months after they were not paying members.

Danielle: Yes.

Tiffany: I get it. Okay. I understand. No, that's not what I was trying to attract. I was trying to attract the [redacted]s and the [redacted]s and those kind of people that had to let the space go.

Charles: Yeah, and if you can objectively show that this would get more people back on board, then there might be a case for it, but it only affects people who just stopped paying without telling us; I don't think that's many people. Most of the people, I think, asked to suspend their membership, and they can be reinstated at any time just by emailing the directors and setting up payments again.

Tiffany: Okay. Well, in that case, never mind; I withdraw [laughs].

Danielle: Yeah, no, you're right. It's the people that suddenly were caught not paying their dues and were like, "Oh, crap, well, I suspend."

Tiffany: "Never mind." Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

Jim: [inaudible] Yeah, they don't have enough money this month or something. I thought there was some mechanism for forgiveness; I don't know. But it was up to somebody.

Charles: Yeah, they can petition the board for, I think, having their dues waived for up to three months. But again, they have to ask us; they can't just stop paying. And I would say if they've already been [inaudible], they've passed the point of asking us. I would be very disinclined to consider someone who is asking retroactively, unless we just find out they were in a coma for a month or something like that [laughs]. That's a good reason.

Danielle: Okay. Anything else?

Charles: Are there any other bylaw change things we want to talk about?

Tiffany: If there was, I can't remember it.

Charles: Once, twice. Round table?

Jim: On the bylaws thing, I was just going to make a suggestion. We were revising our church bylaws, which are so far out of date, and they've been patched up and changed a little here and there over the last 40 years. And they just went through it and read the whole thing and started over again, basically, and we had five people working on it. What we came up with, an idea was that we would have the bylaws that set the framework, and then we would have practices and procedures, which would allow the board to take care of that kind of business that didn't quite rise to the bylaws level. It makes things cleaner and a little easier to understand. Just throwing that out there.

Charles: Well, we've talked about having a Standard Operating Procedures list of documents before, that are non-binding things that just document how we do things. The membership in general only wants the board to make the decisions that are uncontroversial and that they don't want to deal with. We've run up against that a couple of times, I'm sure we can all remember. I think documenting some Standard Operating Procedures would be a good idea.

Jim: It keeps the bylaws cleaner, and you're not amending them all the time.

Charles: Once a year, we usually have something that we want to speak about the bylaws. This time, the tweaks that we're talking about are all temporary.

Jim: Yeah.

Danielle: And this is the first time we've ever been closed to the public. Like, that's basically been our defining moment. If you want to call it the arbitrary point in time in which all of this stuff has happened. If you ever wanted to find that in the bylaws, if the space ever becomes closed to the public, that sort of thing might happen. But this is the first time we've ever been closed to the public.

Charles: Are you saying we need to vote the president more emergency powers?

[laughter]

Danielle: [laughs] No.

Jim: Martial Law [laughs]. One thing I did forget during the financials was that we had the FAP for the fan, but we can't find it. So, I don't know how I'm going to buy it.

Danielle: Oh, yeah, the fan, that they apparently said it was in stock but it wasn't?

Jim: Yeah. It was on their computer at several locations; but those locations don't really have it since they quit selling it in August, and they sent them back, but they're still on their stock list. So I don't know what to do. I'm going to try online or something, and we'll get a fan down there. They had 30" fans but not the 42"s that Kevin FAPped for. And I was afraid to do something that was going to mess things up. So, we'll get it done.

Danielle: Okay. Thanks, Jim.

Jim: Yeah, I just thought I'd throw that in there.

Danielle: It's a good point.

Jim: How long is a FAP good for?

Charles: Two months.

Jim: Okay. I think I can pull it off, depending on Home Depot.

Tiffany: Can we look again for a different 42" fan and if the price is different, either reFAP for it, or can we -- no, we can only modify that amount downward from the amount that was approved in the FAP; it can't be modified upward, correct?

Danielle: That's right.

Charles: I mean, it can always be modified upward with a new FAP.

Tiffany: Right.

Danielle: Yeah.

Charles: But we don't want to do that because we have to get everyone to vote for it again.

Jim: Or a new FAP for a different fan. Staying to those specifications might tighten the availability somewhat.

Tiffany: Because we could post on the info thread, "That fan is no longer available, but this 42" fan is."

Jim: Right. Yeah, that's one thing. The other thing I was worried about was if we go back to Home Depot corporate and order it online somehow, we would have to pay shipping which would increase the price.

Tiffany: Right. And we can't do that without reFAPping.

Charles: What kind of margin did the FAP include on the price?

Jim: It was $349 straight up, wasn't it?

Tiffany: I believe so. I don't think it included any margin.

Charles: Okay. Usually FAPs include a little bit of headroom for shipping or price changes or whatever, and that just gets returned to the general fund after the FAP is executed.

Jim: Yeah. I'm going to go out and see what Grainger has got and some other people, and see about availability here in town before I do anything.

Danielle: Okay. Yeah, and just let us know.

Jim: If we have to FAP again, I'll let Kevin know.

Tiffany: I can't get my google groups to load right now. There it is.

Danielle: All right. Anything else?

Charles: Any other Round Table things? Going once, going twice. Adjourned.

Meeting adjourned, 10:47pm.